These Are The Pale Deaths
by PurplePosie
Summary: Five things Dean keeps, and five things he carries.


**Spoilers:** Up to the end of Season Two**  
Disclaimer:** If it were my day job, I'd love going to work.  
**Summary:** Five things Dean keeps, and five things he carries.**  
Author's Notes:** Essentially a character sketch, this piece is a foray into the "five things" genre. Love to know what did, or didn't, work for you.**  
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* * *

1. The shirt Dad was wearing when he died.

He doesn't know what to do with it; he rolls it into a ball and shoves it into the back of the car between an ammo case and a bottle of holy water, but it bothers him each time he opens the trunk, so after a couple of days he pulls it back out and buries it at the bottom of his duffle, beneath the very battered copy of "Catch-22" that he's been carrying since he finished high school. Only Sammy, fucker, needs to borrow a clean pair of socks and goes to dig them out of the duffle without asking because that's what he's always done, and when Dean comes out of the bathroom to find Sam methodically emptying the duffle in search of them, he goes apeshit. Shouts at Sam to wash his own damn clothes so that he doesn't have to borrow Dean's all the time, then throws the socks at him so hard they bounce off his brother's chest and roll under the bed. Sam stares at him, speechless. Dean shoulders the bag and storms out of the room.

After he cools down a bit, he folds up the shirt and stuffs it under the front seat of the car. And then he kind of forgets about it, in the sense that he doesn't take it out again and he's not always acutely aware of it being there, til that damn sprite in Oregon; he's soaked to the bone and the heating in the Impala hasn't really worked properly since the accident, and he's so damn cold it's getting hard to move his fingers. So he strips off his wet clothes and he has a spare pair of jeans in the trunk but no shirt and he can't, _he can't_, but he can't keep Sam safe if he dies from fuckin' pneumonia either, so he does.

The sleeves are too short and there's a smear of dried blood on the collar. It's enough to make him want to puke, except that his teeth are now chattering so violently it's hard to breathe. He makes a sound that might be a sob; an awful sound that hurts his throat. He folds his arms on the steering wheel and he puts his head on his arms and his whole body shakes with it, but he doesn't cry. He doesn't cry_  
_

* * *

_Grief _

_You told me once, after Mom: you told me that with great love comes great grief. I love you, Dad. You were my rock, my strength, you kept me safe and alive, you carried me. You were my world and I am trying not to hate you for that._

* * *

2. The iPod.

Dad gave it to him when Sam left; got Joshua to load it up last time he pulled through. He didn't say it cos he and Dad, they just don't say these kinds of things and never to each other, but they both knew that Dad knew that it would help Dean drown out the silence where his brother should be.

Turns out Joshua has a sick sense of humour, because along with the perennial favourites he went and loaded all sorts of weird shit - Pearl Jam (and although Dean's willing to admit that some of their guitar work is worthy, the lyrics are so damn emo he can't stand it) and Alice in Chains (marginally better) and Nirvana (he'll put a bullet through his brain before he admits to having listened to that album even once). And then, because Joshua really is one sick puppy, there's a whole playlist of shit Dean ain't never going to listen to except when he puts it on shuffle and one of the songs starts to play in the few seconds it takes him to realise what's happened and hit 'next'.

_Love Me Tender?_ Jackass.

He never did tell Sam that he had it - that the first Christmas Sam was gone, Dad bought him one of those electronic radio tuner transmission thingys that plugged into the top of the iPod and let him pick it up through the car stereo. He chucked both items in the trunk along his own journal before locking the car back in Palo Alto all those months ago, and for some reason it never came back out again. Or hell, there is a reason. He didn't - doesn't - want Sam to know just how badly he needed that damn thing in the years he was gone.

* * *

_Fear _

_Of what you gave me, Dad; of what you asked me to carry._

* * *

3. Dad's watch.

Sam took the tags, neither of them could take the ring, but he slid the watch from Dad's wrist when Sam wasn't looking, just before they burned him. Because fuck it, sometimes even he is allowed to be sentimental and when he looks closely, he can see pieces of their lives etched into the battered leather - marks from Sammy's baby teeth, the cool weight of the strap momentarily easing the pain of their breaking. Bigger marks from Dean's incisors; 19, Baltimore, and he dislocated his kneecap running from some fugly sort-of-demon with glowing purple eyes and Dad whacked it back into line with the heel of his hand because they were a good hundred miles from the closest hospital. The small spatter of blood just below the watch face that used to make him smile each time he saw it as a kid, because it didn't come from a gaping wound or a hunt but rather the stab of a needle into the palm of Dad's hand as he sat between Dean and Sam on a hotel floor, threading popcorn onto string to decorate their tiny Christmas tree. There's a chip on the glass watch face obscuring two-thirds of the number 2, where Dad caught it by accident changing the brakepads on the car. He and Sam both learned a few new words that day.

He doesn't wear Dad's watch. That would be all kinds of wrong and anyway, he has his own - a 21st present from Dad and Sammy, and he'll cut off his hand before he'll cop to wearing a different one. But he carries it with him most of the time, usually in his pocket or in the liner pocket of his coat, and sometimes, when he's more exhausted than usual or he just needs some space to not-think, he takes it out and he turns it over absently in his hands, the tip of one finger rubbing unconsciously across smooth glass, feeling the tiny indent of the chip. Three months after the accident, he's rubbed the glass down so that the chip is barely noticeable.

* * *

_Guilt _

_That it was for me. That you did it for me. That you thought me worthy._

* * *

4. Dad's wallet.

There are at least four credit cards in there that are still good, though he chucks the one that Dad used at the hospital to pay for Dean's coma because, well. There are photos, the sealed plastic envelope containing a curl from Dean's first hair cut, the receipt for Sam's high school graduation ticket. There's money, not a lot, but enough to write himself off on cheap bourbon if he wanted to. Which is tempting, sure, but also not. Because, he needs to stay focused now. Got a job to do, gotta do it right.

He sits down one night to sort through it, spreading out Dad's stuff on top of Bobby's shitty kitchen table. He piles up the stuff he's going to chuck - there's no way he's going to pull off any of Dad's IDs - and after confirming that none of it is going to be of any use to him, hands it to Sam, who looks up from the laptop in surprise. Asks if Sam wants any of it, and Sam gets this pissy look on his face that Dean knows is more of a Sam-can't-process-this thing than irritation with the situation at hand, but he can't help biting anyway. Sam's up in his face before he can get the words out, but he stops just short of dropping Sam on his ass, though truth be told, he really wants to.

He sits back down at the table, shirt torn a little at the collar, and very deliberately removes his own wallet from his back pocket. Just as deliberately, he sorts his stuff into 'keep' and 'toss', then opens Dad's wallet and carefully arranges what's left around those things from Dad that he's hanging onto. Then he gets up and drops the 'toss' stuff in the sink. He grabs the matchbox from the window sill and sets a flame to it. He stands there watching it burn; Sam's eyes burning holes of their own, into his back.

"Damnit, Dean," Sam says softly - so softly, he's not sure if he's supposed to see it except that it's Sammy, so of course he is. "He only died yesterday."

Dean shrugs. "Then he's not going to need this stuff tomorrow, is he." And he shoves Dad's wallet, now bulging with Dean's IDs and cards, back into his pocket and goes upstairs to throw up.

* * *

_Shame _

_Not fast enough, good enough, strong enough, not _enough _to make you stay._

* * *

5. Dad's machete.

The blade is sharp enough to split hairs and it fits in his hand like it was made to be there, the handle smooth and hard and easy to wield. And Sammy gets kind of teary the first time Dean pulls it out on a hunt, because that's Sammy and that's just what Sammy fuckin' does, but Dean's grinning like a mother as he swings it and it's got nothing to do with Dad or the accident or anything other than the fluid synergy of a better-than-good hunter wielding a fuckin' awesome weapon.

Cos old man's or not, that knife is just plain cool.

* * *

_Relief _

_You are no longer here to see me fuck it up. I am free to be the failure we both know I've always been._


End file.
